Posted by Cindy on June 30, 2008
Jenny at Little Acorns Treehouse has asked that experienced homeschoolers give some of their best advice to new homeschoolers. Even though I’m a bit late in writing my entry, here it is! I chose to focus on one of the worst mistakes I made in the earlier years.
The worst mistake I have ever made homeschooling has been trying too hard to push “my” agenda with the children.It’s so easy to plan, prepare, buy materials and have the perfect schedule of studies set for the year – only to find that your child isn’t exactly on the same page as you.
As an example, before our third year of homeschooling, I decided that we needed to get more serious.I had been using a very literature-based, hands-on, mom-planned curriculum through the previous years, but I began to doubt my abilities to teach the “right” things and know my own children’s learning styles.
In my mind, the way to make sure we were on track was to buy textbooks/workbooks for every subject.And of course, I needed to add all the extras that so many people recommend, like Latin, etiquette, and even a planned out fitness program.Let’s just suffice it to say that this year turned out to be our worst ever.My children were miserable.I was miserable.And very honestly, I believe less learning took place because everyone was so miserable.I wasn’t meeting the learning styles of my children and I was pushing to accomplish way too much.
Since we’ve been back to a more natural flow of learning for our family, school has become enjoyable again!That’s not to say that I don’t slip back into the same old habit of over-thinking and over-planning, but keeping my eye on the situation and being willing to make changes when necessary has made all the difference.Good luck!!You’re going to love it!
Posted by Cindy on June 24, 2008
Yep, we’re still as busy as beavers around here! I thought I’d stop in for a few minutes to show you some of the fun from our Creation Club this month…..
We met at the local cemetery. Cemeteries are wonderful for nature study! Typically, they have a huge variety of trees, shrubs, fungi, weathering and even critters to be found. With tweezers and baggies in hand, the kids’ first job was to go on a Tweezer Trek. Basically, they were asked to collect anything and everything nature related that they could pick up with tweezers. We had a show-n-tell time and studied a few things under the magnifying glasses.
The next activity was to dissect flowers. Thanks to a couple local nurseries, we had an abundance of flowers to use. Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Botany
has a wonderful flower dissection tutorial that we went through. Before digging in, though, we read The Reason for a Flower (Ruth Heller’s World of Nature)
and drew/labeled a flower diagram. As you can see, our little botanists were very serious about their dissection and recording what they had found.
Here are a few great sites to go along with flower dissection…
Virtual Flower Dissection
Color Photos of Flower Parts
How about enjoying your own flower study with these and MANY more ideas? Try Wonderful Wildflowers!
Posted by Cindy on June 21, 2008
It has been a beautiful start to summer in Central KY! Over the past few days, we’ve noticed many new wildflowers blooming on our farm. Since we live down a little gravel road and have to either walk or drive about 1/4 mile to the mailbox, I thought we’d take a wildflower walk and see what God has placed before us on this start to a new season.
Here’s a glimpse of our road. We only took pictures of things we could see without wandering too far off the road.
Here are many of the wildflowers we saw. Almost 1/3 of my pictures were blurry because I tried to snap the shot too close to the flower. I probably didn’t even take pictures of another 1/3 of what we saw. God is amazing!
Of course, where there are wild flowers, there are butterflies. We saw tons of them in all shapes, sizes and colors.
I couldn’t resist adding a picture of garden #1. We’ve harvested cabbage and broccoli already. The green beans will be ready in the next day or two. As you can see in the slide show above, the wild blackberries are coming on, too. I think tomorrow after church will be a blackberry walk!
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Posted by Cindy on June 13, 2008
Why am I on a blogging break?
The Nature E-Book.
The CHEK Convention. Yep, that’s me in the speaker’s section! You might pray for me, I’m getting a bit nervous. At the same time, I’m VERY excited! I’ll be doing a workshop on adding creative touches to your homeschool. I think more than anything, I’m afraid no one will choose my workshop over the others going on at the same time! LOL
Nature Walks
Birthday Parties – Happy 8th Birthday, Caleb!!
Church Camp
4-H
And baseball.
Whew. I think I need a break from more than just my blog! 
Posted by Cindy on June 2, 2008
Have you ever visited Shakertown? It’s such a lovely place to visit in Central KY. This weekend, we were treated to our first ever overnight stay in one of the original village buildings! My father-in-law took our family and the horses for two days of trail riding, hiking, touring and dining at the historic restaurant. We had a super time! Thank you, Papaw!!
